


give me mercy, 'cause i keep hurting

by riptheh



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Childhood Trauma, Community College, Community College AU, Depression, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Friends to Enemies to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Mental Health Issues, Military Academy, Military Backstory, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recreational Drug Use, Romance, Trauma, i will try to tag before relevant chapters or leave a note, slowburn romance, so if you want to see the military depicted in a positive light, spoken about but not shown, that being said this story is really not military friendly, this is not for you
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:49:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25526215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riptheh/pseuds/riptheh
Summary: In which Catra loses her job, enrolls at the local community college, and walks into a creative writing class to see someone she never wanted to see again.In which Adora, newly discharged and trying to stick the shattered pieces of her life back together, signs up for a creative writing class on the military's dime.And accidentally rekindles something she'd thought she'd lost forever.
Relationships: Adora & Catra & Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra), Bow/Glimmer (She-Ra), Catra & Entrapta & Scorpia (She-Ra)
Comments: 24
Kudos: 120





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yes it is i, starting like another au. im sorry  
> a few notes about this fic:  
> -this fic deals heavily in traumatic backstory and mental illness, as well as a military backstory and associated traumas. some of this stuff i am borrowing heavily from my own life, and others i am doing research to present as well as possible. that said, though i'll do my best, i can only present the scope of my experiences, and beyond that, present what i can as best i can. this will be a heavy story about trauma and healing, but hopefully ill do it justice.  
> -I've decided to present Catra as latina here, because that was how she was imagined by Noelle. i am not latina, so if I mess something up, please tell me and I'll fix/rewrite it.  
> -In this story, Adora is going to be Jewish because well I am Jewish and im projecting. just a heads up.  
> In this story, the military aspects will be a mixture of real life stuff and stuff i've made up to fit the story. this isn't going to be set in america, but a modern Etheria au that mirrors american community colleges. So some stuff will def be made up, while others might mirror how the real life military etc works. The same goes for the mental illness and care aspects. like i said above, im borrowing some stuff from my experience, but not all, so it will be a mix.  
> -slooooowburn. like, really slow. apologies in advance
> 
> other than that, please read the tags and be kind to yourselves. and i hope you all enjoy this story!!
> 
> edit: can yall believe i forgot the summary. smh anyway its fixed now

It was 7:56 a.m. on a fucking Monday, and Catra was pretty much ready to die.

At least, that’s what she felt like. On the verge of death, and ready to do anything to help herself along, just to avoid putting one foot in front of the other, drawing herself to the very place she didn’t want to be.

She fucking hated this. She hated this, and she had Scorpia to blame.

_“C’mon, wildcat! Rise and shine!” Scorpia was always, somehow, Catra’s biggest cheerleader, even when Catra was six feet under with a shovel in her hand. Which was basically where she was right then, passed out on the couch with a pillow over her head and the the charred end of a joint sticking out of the spaghetti sauce top she had used as an ashtray._

_She had spent her last money on weed, and it was only now, with the late morning light trickling through the window and Scorpia’s aggravatingly cheerful tones bouncing around in her brain was she starting to regret it._

_“Go the fuck away, Scorpia,” she mumbled, and raised both hands to clamp the pillow further over her ears. “I’m not awake.”_

_“Oh, I know you don’t sleep talk though,” Scorpia said, chuckling as if the words were funny, then, before Catra could stop her, picked her up and dumped her on the floor._

_“What—what the fuck are you doing!” Catra screeched, her voice going squeaky the way it always did when she was upset. She hated that—years scaring people off, and she couldn’t even have the voice to match. “Get the hell away from me, god damn it!”_

_“Not this time, wildcat.” Scorpia shook her head and crossed her arms, both feet planted firmly on either side of Catra’s prone form. “Sorry, but I can’t just let you wallow in misery while you stink up our apartment with weed. You know Entrapta doesn’t like the smell.”_

_“Fuck,” Catra groaned, and glanced toward the joint end on the end table, cringing guiltily. It was true Entrapta—and Scorpia, though Catra knew she wouldn’t admit it—hated the smell of weed in their house, even though Catra was pretty sure Entrapta was high every time she came up with a new idea for taking apart their oven. Scorpia, ever the teetotaler, didn’t neither smoked nor drank, since she claimed her job as a bouncer at the Fright Zone, Bright Moon’s hottest club, cured her of any desire to do so. Entrapta, Catra was pretty sure, smoked solely while on the clock at the job they shared at McDonalds._

_Well, used to share. But Catra didn’t want to contemplate what that might mean for her future. Not yet._

_Damn it, she wished she had more weed._

_“Jesus, I thought I’d be up in time to air out the house, okay?” she admitted, rolling over to glare at Scorpia’s towering form. “Cut me some fucking slack, I just got fired.”_

_Immediately, Scorpia’s expression softened, and she bent down—possibly to help Catra up, possibly to hug her. Catra didn’t know. All she knew was that she was on her feet in a moment, backing away before she could do either._

_“Aw, wildcat.” Scorpia didn’t take her body language as an insult. Instead, she hugged her arms to her chest again and nodded in sympathy—sympathy Catra didn’t need. “I didn’t mean to push you. I should really work on that, the pushing thing, and the being too much thing, and the—”_

_“Scorpia, it’s fine,” Catra huffed out, each word dragging like glass. “I mean, I’m not angry, okay? Jesus. Next time I’ll be think more about the weed thing.”_

_Scorpia only nodded wisely, as if this was all the apology she needed to hear. “Well, that’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually. Not the weed thing, though now that I think of it, you should really get a vape, because those things have almost no smell and—”_

_“Scorpia,” Catra groaned, and flopped heavily down on their battered and beaten couch, wincing as a spring dug into her ass. “I don’t have any fucking money, remember?”_

_“Oh, right!” This seemed to draw Scorpia out of her ramble. She brightened immediately, grin widening with an idea Catra definitely did not want to hear. “Well actually, I think I can fix that.”_

_“What?” Okay, maybe she did want to hear this. Catra perked up, hands digging into the couch cushions. “How?”_

_“Okay, so I have this regular at the club—”_

_A club story. Immediately, Catra stifled a groan. She did not want to sit through another one of Scorpia’s incredibly long stories about some ‘incredibly interesting stranger’ she met at the club. None of them were actually interesting, and Scorpia could never keep a tale under fifteen minutes._

_“And me and him got talking, and I mentioned that my friend just lost her job, and he said ‘hey, I’m actually looking for somebody to run the snack bar at my place’, and I said ‘great!’ and then he mentioned about this program, and—”_

_“Scorpia,” Catra interrupted with a growl. “Get to the point. Is this a real job offer or not?”_

_“Uh—” Scorpia hesitated. “Yes, sort of.”_

_Right. Of course there would be a catch. “What do you mean, sort of?”_

_“Well—” Again, Scorpia dithered, caught between Catra’s glower and whatever news she wanted to give. “Well, it’s minimum wage. And it’s less of a job and more of a program—”_

_“A program?” In a flash Catra was on her feet, hands tossed into the air. “Jesus Christ, Scorpia, weed is not an addiction! And it’s fucking legal in Bright Moon!”_

_And she couldn’t afford it half the time anyway. Now, with no job and no prospects, she would never be able to afford it, nor would she be able to afford any chance of scraping some savings together—not that she had been saving much in the first place. What was the point? Life was shit, and hers was at the bottom of the heap. She had never bothered with savings before because she’d never had the chance, and she’d never thought she’d live past twenty anyway._

_Now, she was starting to regret that. Slightly._

_But Scorpia raised her hands immediately in defense. “It’s not a drug program!” she said quickly. “And I don’t think weed is an addictive drug, Catra! Besides, you don’t really drink, and even though alcohol is legal you know that’s the real kille—”_

_“Scorpia,” Catra hissed, her nails digging into her palms. “Get to the point.”_

_“Oh. Oh, right!” Scorpia nodded sheepishly, as if just now remembering. “Okay, so it turns out, this guy isn’t just looking for employees. It’s actually sort of a combined work-study program.”_

_Catra stared. And stared. And stared, trying to parse the words Scorpia had just said._

_A work-study program. “You mean like school?” she asked stupidly, and Scorpia nodded eagerly._

_“Yep!” she exclaimed, popping the ‘p’. “His program is partnered with the Bright Moon community college. Basically, he hires you with the agreement that you attend classes around your work schedule, within one of their approved majors. And if everything goes well, he pays for your associate’s!”_

_“Associate’s,” Catra said, the words falling limply from her lips. This sounded suspiciously like a trap. “And all I have to do to get a free education is to work at a fucking snack bar?”_

_That sounded too good to be true. Far too good. There had to be something off about the deal, something that would send Catra running. It wasn’t that she was against the idea of school—or at least, she wasn’t anymore. Rather, it was a dream she’d long since packed away to rot, because Catra and school didn’t mix. Not when her plans had been thrown out the window by the very person she never wanted to think about._

_Returning to school sounded terrifying. It also sounded like a bone thrown at the very moment Catra needed it most. Right now, standing in the grave she had dug when she’d picked a fight with that incredibly rude customer, she’d thought she’d hit rock bottom. She couldn’t imagine a rope appearing over the edge, ready for her to pull herself up._

_She had no upper body strength. But she had no choice not to try._

_Still though, she hesitated. Because nothing about this made sense. It was too unbelievable, and that meant there had to be something wrong with it. Something Catra wouldn’t like._

_“So there’s no catch?” she said. “I just work and go to school?”_

_“Uh—” And that was when Catra knew there was something. Because Scorpia had that look, like she was about to start wringing her hands._

_“Scorpia.” Catra’s voice was low. “What’s the catch?”_

_“Uh—well—” Scorpia made a face. “You won’t like this, but—”_

_“But what?”_

_“The guy was a youth pastor.”_

_“Scorpia, what the fuck?”_

A youth pastor. A fucking youth pastor. And that was how, a week before the start of the new semester, Catra found herself slinging hot dogs and serving slushees to ungrateful little brats at the last place she ever wanted to visit; a Christian community center. The kind with a pool and a fucking water slide, where kids came to summer camp and daycare, and old people came to listen to sermons as they did pool yoga. Or something.

Catra hated these kind of places. They made the hairs on her arms stand on end, made her skin crawl, and reminded her of a load of bad memories she just wanted to forget. But it wasn’t as if she had a choice; between a job at a community center, and no job at all, she’d take the damn job.

Which also meant a free education, and Catra, with all her fucking neuroses and instabilities, wasn’t going to pass that up. Not when it was a handhold to a better life.

Of course, as she crossed the campus now to reach the low slung building of the English department at 7:58 in the fucking morning, she was seriously starting to regret the decision.

She didn’t even know why the hell she had to take this class in the first place. Creative writing had nothing to do with computer science, and Catra not only hated English, but everything associated with it. She preferred TV shows to books, despised all the classics they’d forced upon her at the boarding school—writings by a bunch of ugly old white men—and had always, always preferred the sciences. Science and math made sense; there were right answers, and wrong ones. Not a bunch of different interpretations, and grammar rules that changed every single day.

English had always been Catra’s enemy; first when she had been forced to speak it instead of Spanish as a child, and then when she’d been forced to read it as a teenager. By then, she was plenty fine with the written word, but she hated the insubstantial wishy-washiness of it all, the lack of certainty and clarity that mirrored everything in her life.

She didn’t want to interpret things. She wanted to know. 

And now, worse than the basic college English she was _also_ supposed to take, she had to take creative-fucking-writing.

Left to her own devices, she never would have made such a choice. But Scorpia’s lucky job offer had come in only two weeks before the semester had started, and by then, almost every elective was filled. That meant that Catra would either have to take an eight a.m. creative writing class, or an 8 p.m. _art history_ class.

And sure, Catra hated creative writing, but she would rather inject bleach into her veins than study art history.

“Room 115, room 115,” she muttered as she skid through the sliding glass doors, past the out of order vending machine, and into the ugly fluorescent lights of the hallway. “Where the fuck is—”

There it was. Almost right by the glass doors, actually, which was perfect because the class was about one second from starting. Quickly, just as the professor stood from her desk, Catra drove through the door, didn’t bother with a sorry, and made a beeline to the back of the room.

Perfect. There were only about—she counted quickly—fourteen heads in the class, which meant, she was pretty sure, less shitty writing to listen to.

Which might mean, also, that she’d have to put her own shitty writing out there. Fuck. Fuck, fuck—

“Good morning, class.” The professor, heaving heaved herself into a standing position, yawned and gave everybody a wan smile. “I’m Professor Netossa. You can call me Netossa if you want, I don’t really care. Honestly, I’m not up for getting called professor at eight a.m. on a Monday.”

Huh. Maybe this class wouldn’t be so terrible. The professor—Netossa—at the very least, didn’t seem so stuck up. Maybe Catra could make up some excuses about her terrible time in English and beg off actually writing anything if she promised to rip everybody else’s writing to shreds. That was what they did in creative writing, right? Insult each other’s work until somebody broke down and cried.

Maybe she really would like this class after all.

“Throughout the semester, aside from smaller projects, everybody will be required to submit three separate pieces of their own original work,” Netossa said with a severe glare. Catra stifled a groan.

Fucking creative writing.

“That means no fanfiction,” she reminded, to several guilty looks among the class. “Fanfiction has its time and place, people, but here we’re going to focus on your original work. This semester we’ll be going over several short fiction forms. That means short stories, poetry—”

Near the back, somebody groaned.

“ _Yes_ , poetry, and, remember, this is also a critique welcome zone. That being said, critique does not mean insults and personal attacks.”

This time, it was Catra who nearly groaned again. Jesus fuck, she was really going to hate this class, wasn’t she?

“That means that—”

“Sorry I’m late, I’m so sorry!”

Netossa hadn’t closed the door, and that was her mistake, Catra realized, as a blond figure barreled into the room, backpack swinging and papers flying. She was babbling as she went, apologizing at the rate of three sorrys per second, and it took Netossa a moment to recover.

“Excuse me, you can’t just come running in here like that,” she scolded as she moved to shut the door. “This class starts at eight. I’ll be lenient today, but I reserve the right to lock the door the moment that clock hits the hour.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry—”

Something about that voice was grating on Catra’s nerves. No, something about that voice was starkly familiar, familiar in a way she couldn’t place, except that it almost sounded like—

But no. It couldn’t be.

“Please just sit down.” Netossa was kneading her forehead, and the blond girl did exactly as she asked, bobbing her head and turning around to plop her bag in an empty seat right at the front.

And Catra’s blood ran cold.

“No,” she whispered, and didn’t even care that the stoner dude two chairs away shot her a weird glance. “No…”

Because there, anxiously unpacking her things as one foot nervously tapped the ground, blond ponytail swinging, was Adora.

Whom she hadn't seen in six years. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey im back!! thank you for the responses on the first chapter, i got so excited that i wrote out the next two, whoops. also im trying to space out posting but im also impatient so who knows, ya know?

_No. No fucking way. This can’t be happening._

Every tick of that stupid analog clock on the wall sounded like the toll of a fucking cloister bell. It drowned out Catra’s hearing, drowned out everything Netossa was saying, and all she could feel was a cold, creeping panic.

This couldn’t be happening.

The blond sitting at the front couldn’t be Adora. Not her once best friend, not the girl who had abandoned her without a second look back, not the girl who had once sworn she’d be by Catra’s side forever.

Forever lasted until the age of eight-fucking-teen, apparently.

“Uh, dude?” The stoner dude beside her was, inexplicably, holding out a clipboard. “Are you gonna sign in or what?”

“What?” Catra snapped, only to look at the clipboard and put two and two together. “Oh—yeah, duh. Give that to me.”

She snatched it from him before he could say anything else in that stupid surfer drawl of his (they were nowhere near a fucking beach), and ignored his insulted huff to shove the clipboard into her face and scan the contents.

She saw the name immediately, and her heart dropped. Because yes, this wasn’t some terrible lucid dream. This wasn’t a nightmare she would wake up from, or a hallucination brought on by smoking some second rate weed. 

The name _Adora Grayskull_ looped across the top line in scrawled, familiar writing.

Catra stared at it, heart pounding hard, then looked up at the girl in the front row.

It was her. Even now, just looking at the back of her head, that stupid, poofy ponytail was unmistakable. Even the fashion sense was the same—an ugly red jacket and sweatpants, like she’d started to change out of pajamas and forgotten how to dress halfway through.

Adora had never known how to dress when she wasn’t in uniform. Not even when they were kids, and especially once they got to the fucking boarding school. She always wore the stupidest stuff, and Catra had to spend an extra five to ten minutes fixing her up before she let her set foot out the door.

Adora used to just stand there like a mannequin, a goofy smile on her face, and laugh as she caught the clothes Catra tossed her.

“Can’t I just wear some of your stuff?” she’d ask, waggling her eyebrows. “You always wear the coolest things. And how do you get away with those patches on your uniform, anyway?”

“Because I’m special,” Catra would retort, and slingshot a t-shirt into her face to shut her up.

She wasn’t laughing now. Instead, her back was ramrod straight and her pencil was out, even though Catra knew they were only going over the syllabus.

But that was just Adora. Stupid, selfish, goody two-shoes Adora, who broke promises and shot friends in the back and then turned around and pretended like Catra was the one who had hurt her.

Catra hadn’t done a goddamn thing but ask her not to leave. By the time Adora had decided not to listen, it was too late to even bother.

Catra was no stranger to hatred. She’d hated Ms. Weaver and she’d hated Commandant Hordak, and she’d hated half the kids who went to their stupid, propaganda-spewing military school.

But her hatred to Adora was different, sharpened by a feeling she didn’t entirely understand.

And god, it hurt.

It hurt seeing her. It hurt looking at the back of her head, and it hurt seeing, when she half-turned to grab something out of her back, that she was just as stupidly hot now as she had been at age eighteen, which wasn’t fucking fair at all. Sure, she was only twenty four, but couldn’t she get wrinkles or something? Gray hair? Anything to convince Catra that she had scraped a victory in this feud she’d tried to forget had ever existed?

But no. Life hadn’t been kind to Catra, not since the start and certainly not in the past few years, but she could fucking bet it had been great for Adora. After all, she’d gotten everything she’d wanted. She’d gotten rid of Catra, and she’d moved up in the world. She’d gone on to serve a purpose, or whatever she’d called it. 

Catra called it being eaten up and spit out by the military machine, but of course, Adora never listened to her.

“Hey, uh—” That fucking stoner dude. Was he ever going to give her a rest?

“What?” Catra snarled, spinning around so fast he jerked back in surprise.

“Jesus, I was just going to ask if you were gonna turn that in.” He nodded to the clipboard in her hands, and Catra glanced at it, confused.

Then she realized that there were fifteen names on the clipboard, not including hers. Everybody in the class, and she the last one to sign.

Which meant she was expected to bring it back to the front.

_Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck—_

“Oh. I mean, yeah, obviously,” she spat, and turned away from the stoner dude before he could reply, ignoring his huff of indignation. Quickly, she grabbed for a pen and scribbled down her name—Catra Medina—on the bottommost empty row, then set the pen down and looked up, to the front of the class.

Adora was still staring straight ahead, eyes laser-fixed upon the professor. Maybe she wouldn’t even notice Catra. The desk wasn’t even in her line of sight—it was a little off to the left. Catra just had to get up, set the clipboard down, then turn before Adora could get a good look at her.

She could do this. 

Carefully, she stood, trying to make as little noise as possible. The stoner dude, and another middle aged woman glanced at her curiously, but they were the only ones who did. Everybody else was watching Netossa as she went over the attendance policy. 

“Now, you can miss three classes without an excuse, but beyond that—”

Beyond that, Catra was already making plans to drop the class. Fuck her degree. She couldn’t do this. She would avoid Adora today, then march straight to the administration building and switch to art history. 

She’d spend the semester clawing her eyes out, but she could pay that price.

With silent footsteps, she made her way to the front of the class, deliberately avoiding any gazes, even as her own searched for some sign that Adora might turn around. But she wasn’t. She was only watching Netossa with eager, almost anxious interest, a demeanor Catra found aggravatingly familiar.

_“Jesus, are you in love with her or something?” Catra whispered, leaning over her desk to Adora, who jumped, then shot Catra a glare._

_“Shut up! I’m just trying to focus!” she hissed back, her pencil bouncing in her hands. “She’s telling us important information!”_

_Catra rolled her eyes. “Yeah, about fucking West Point. Why the hell would you go to a military college after spending four years in fucking military high school?”_

_“Shhh!” Adora scolded with a glance to the representative, who was too deep in her propaganda-spewing to notice. “It’s not that bad, Catra! They make you an officer afterwards. And the education is free.”_

_“Yeah, so they can suck five years of your life from you,” Catra said with another roll of her eyes, even as her heart started to beat slightly faster. Sure, she knew Adora loved the military, but she couldn’t seriously be considering— “or your life, you know.”_

_Adora’s eyes softened at that, and she slumped slightly, her pencil going still. “I know,” she whispered with a glance at the representative, who was now going on about the different jobs available. “It’s not—it’s not an option, Catra. You know you need to be like, amazing to get in.”_

_And you are, Catra thought, but didn’t say the words aloud. She couldn’t. It was too terrible of a thought to consider. Not when they already had their life plotted out before them—get into the same college, escape their terrible boarding school together, and live it up until life figured out what to do with them._

_That was all Catra cared about. But sometimes, she couldn’t help the feeling that Adora was looking for…more._

_Like Catra wasn’t enough._

“Are you going to put that down?” 

“Huh?” Catra jerked back to life, only to realize she had frozen, one foot from the desk, the clipboard hovering as if she meant to set it down. She was in front of the rows, her back to Adora, but she could still feel the slow turn of eyes to her.

Fuck.

“Uh, yeah. Of course,” she mumbled, and shoved the clipboard onto a pile of papers, then started to turn, careful to turn away from Adora.

Adora, nerd that she was, was probably still watching the professor anyway.

“Thank you—” Netossa glanced to the clipboard— “Catra. Lovely name, by the way.”

Catra froze, half turned from the desk, and felt all the blood drain from her face. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a blond form, hunched over a piece of paper, stiffen.

No way. She couldn’t be this unlucky. 

But she was. Because even as she jerked to life and stepped forward, pushing back the first row, Adora spun around as well, nearly falling out of her seat in the process.

And Catra, idiot that she was, just had to look back.

Their eyes met. For the first time in six years, and Catra hated it, because they were the same blue eyes she’d looked into a thousand times, the same blue eyes she’d seen in her dreams no matter how hard she tried to forget, and the same blue eyes that had looked at her one last time as if Catra were the one who had torn them apart, and not their owner.

Then Adora actually gaped, her eyes widening and her mouth falling open as if—

As if she actually wanted to see Catra.

“Catra?” she whispered, and the word sounded like a prayer.

It might as well have been the kind that struck you down as a sin, because that was what it felt like.

“Hey, Adora,” Catra said, the words slipping out before she could stop them. “Long time, no see.”

Then, before Adora could say anything more, Catra grabbed her bag, turned on her heel, and shoved her way out the door.

————

She didn’t have any other classes that day, which was good, because she wouldn’t have gone to any of them. Her skin felt stretched and itchy, like it was pulling her body apart, and though she scratched viciously at her arms and elbows, it didn’t go away.

She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t fucking do this. Art history it was.

The administrative building was on the other side of the entire fucking campus, and it took Catra ten minutes to walk there, fuming the entire way. It was a sweltering August day too, so by the time she got there, she could feel beads of sweat rubbing thin the leather of her crummy old jacket.

An old, worn leather jacket. The first signature piece of clothing she’d picked up once she’d left that damn boarding school. She’d found it at a thrift shop for seven dollars and clung to it ever since, even though by now it was undisputedly ready to be retired.

She glanced down at her ripped jeans and band t-shirt, the pins on her old bag as she reached the door. At least she knew how to dress better than her old friend-turned-enemy.

Not that Adora would ever have the chance to see her again.

An elderly woman looked up as Catra strode through the door, one matronly eyebrow arched.

“May I help you?” she asked stiffly, her eyes scanning Catra as if looking for trouble. Of course. They always looked at her like that, first at the boarding school because she was known for it, and then because she made sure to dress like it.

But it had started even before then, back at the congregate care home, with Ms. Weaver and her sharp, ever-searching eyes. Searching for trouble, and they always landed on Catra, no matter how hard she tried to be good.

Catra had been marked for trouble since the day she was born. At the very least, she could own it.

“I want to switch classes,” she told the women flatly. “I’m in creative writing under Netossa. I want to be in art history.”

“Art history?” The woman’s eyebrows raised even higher as her eyes roamed disapprovingly over Catra’s form. Catra scowled, strongly resisting the urge to scratch her eyes out. 

“Yes, art history,” she spat. “I know that it’s the only other class available for my major. I want to switch.”

“Hmmm.” The woman pursed her lips and at last tore her eyes away from Catra, her fingers starting to move across the keyboard. Catra stared at her nails as they click-clacked over the keys, and felt her own sharp ones dig into her palms. 

Breathe, she reminded herself, and forced her grip to loosen. She just had to switch her class, and get the hell out of here.

“I’m afraid art history is full,” the woman said, snapping Catra out of her forced self-guided breathing.

“What?” she exclaimed, only to still under the woman’s sharp glance. Right. She had to be polite, or she’d just make this harder, and she didn’t need that. Now now. 

With a deep breath, she forced herself to calm. “I mean, it wasn’t full last week.”

“And it is now.” The woman’s tone was reproachful as her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Unfortunately, we had an uptick in late enrollments. Yours among them. I’m afraid you’ll just have to take creative writing. Of course, you could drop it—”

But that meant dropping the degree. Or at least, to her program it did. In the short list of rules Jeff the youth pastor had given her, one of the most important ones was that she had to enroll in a full curriculum. Any less, and sure, she could go to college, but on her own dime.

Too bad Catra didn’t have a dime.

“Fuck,” she hissed, not caring that the old lady heard, or that she flinched at the word. “Damn it, I—okay. Fine. Whatever. Thanks.”

With that, she turned on her heel and pushed through the glass doors, ignoring the beam of the old lady’s eyes into her back.

Great. She was stuck in creative writing with the last person she ever wanted to see, and to make things even worse, now she had to explain to Netossa why she’d stormed out. 

If Netossa would even let her back in.

Catra stifled a groan, and looked up at the sky. Despite the oppressive late summer heat, thick thunderheads were starting to roll in, blanketing out the sun. As she stared upwards, a raindrop hit her on the nose, and spattered.

“God damn it.” She sighed, and dropped her gaze to the ground. For just a moment, when Scorpia had woken her up with that unbelievable job offer, she’d thought that her life would get easy. Maybe not less shitty, or not for a while, but easier, maybe.

But God, if that dumbfuck was even up there, just had to go and throw a wrench in the works, didn’t he?

“Damn it, Adora.” Catra ran a hand over her face, wiping away the raindrop that was starting to roll down the side of her face. “Why can’t you just stay the hell out of my life?”

But it was never going to be that simple, was it?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey guys, I'm back! Sorry for the wait, I took a break to work on some other stories. Now we've got Adora's pov, which will hopefully shed a little light on the kind of stuff she's been dealing with and so on.

Adora’s first class, on her first day, should have gone perfectly if she hadn’t been…well, herself.

First, she woke up late, which she never did. It didn’t even matter that she stayed up all night tossing and turning, and it didn’t matter that Glimmer sent her to bed at one a.m. after she found Adora nose deep in a planner, studying her schedule just to make sure she didn’t have the wrong date.

She should have woken up on time. Hell, she was used to waking up at any hour, on the dot, because that was what she was trained for. 

But she was six months out of the army, and just as she’d suspected she would, she was growing soft.

“Did you take your meds?” Bow hovered anxiously over one shoulder, as Glimmer hovered over the other. “Did you get breakfast? Adora, you can’t just run out without breakfast!”

“Here!” Glimmer shoved a browning banana into her hand before Adora could even lie about eating. “Take this—and eat it, or I’ll talk to my mother!”

“Glimmer, your mom can’t do anything to me,” Adora said as she peeled the banana with one hand and shoved her boots on with the other. She hadn’t even had time to grab anything better than sweatpants, which was probably what she was going to wear anyway, but _still_. “I’m not in the army anymore, remember?”

Glimmer frowned, and crossed her arms. Even at five foot even, she wore the army working uniform well—patchy tiger stripe camouflage the army swore it was going to phase out every year, and never did. Adora knew this because she still kept up with the army news, even though she didn’t need to.

She didn’t need anything to do with the army. There was no purpose there for her anymore.

“You didn’t answer Bow’s question,” Glimmer said, barreling instead down a different track. She’d always been good at that when they were at West Point—even as a plebe, or first year, she’d grasped strategy quickly, and was a master at thinking on her feet.

Her one flaw was that, even as a lieutenant, she still chose the most aggressive strategy every time. It was something her mother often bemoaned.

“Yes, I took my meds,” Adora said, which wasn’t even a lie. Sure, she was getting a little low, and still had to figure out her insurance before she could get a refill, but that was future Adora’s problem. Besides, if she did run out, she knew she could deal for a few days without medication. She’d been living that way her whole life, after all.

“Great!” Bow crowed, and before Adora could back away, rushed forward and engulfed her in a hug, the ribbons on his navy khakis digging into her jacket. The half-peeled banana went flying from her hand, and landed with a splat on the floor. “We’re so proud!”

“Bow, she was supposed to eat that!” Glimmer groaned, but then she joined in as well, wrapping her hands around both Bow and Adora, even though Adora knew she couldn’t reach. 

“We are though,” she said quietly, and with such fervency that Adora knew she meant it. She also knew that it should make her feel better.

It didn’t. Because no matter how great her friends were, Adora knew the truth. She was going to community college as a last dish chance to make something of herself, because she couldn’t make it in the military. Not at West Point, and not as an enlisted soldier.

They’d told her over and over again that it wasn’t her fault, and that was what her therapist at the hospital had told her too, but no matter how many times she heard them, they didn’t fit the way the truth did.

The truth was that she had failed. Black and white.

“Guys, it’s just community college,” she said, her voice muffled into Bow’s shoulder, and when they didn’t release her, raised her watch to her face. “And I’m—oh my god! I’m late!”

“What!” Bow squawked, and pushed himself away. “Glimmer, why did you hug her! C’mon, Adora, get out that door!”

“Bow, seriously—” But Adora didn’t wait around to hear Glimmer’s retort. She was already whirling around, shoving on her other boot and lunging for the door. 

“Bye guys!” she called over her shoulder as she practically fell onto the stoop. “Love you!”

“Love you!” they called after her, and that was all she heard before the door slammed shut.

With a little help from whoever sat up in the sky, Adora thought she might have made it on time. However, clearly nobody was up there, or maybe they just weren’t listening, because by the time she pulled into the community college parking lot, right in front of the English building, she was five minutes late and counting.

“Damn it,” she muttered as she stumbled out of her car and rushed to the sliding glass doors. “Seriously, Adora? On your first day?”

Nobody, fortunately, was inside to hear her muttering, but there was one room with the door propped open, just by the entrance. She spun towards it, and upon confirming the number next to the door, dove through.

“Sorry I’m late, I’m so sorry!”

Sorry was the best way to start things, she’d learned. Mainly if she’d messed up, which was often, but also because it broke the ice and let people know that she was trying her best. Or maybe it was just instinct at this point, because she’d gotten used to apologizing for a litany of things, from her general awkward self to others’ behavior, whether it was her fault or not.

Better safe than sorry. Adora lived by those words. 

“Excuse me,” the professor glared, “you can’t just come running in here like that.” As Adora ducked into the first available seat, cringing under the professor’s glare, the professor moved to shut the door. “This class starts at eight. I’ll be lenient today, but I reserve the right to lock the door the moment that clock hits the hour.”

“I know, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry—”

The therapist at the hospital said she apologized too much. Hell, Bow and Glimmer said she apologized too much, and back in the army, she had been told more than once to shut up, stop apologizing, and fix the damn problem.

But it was a nervous tic, as well as an ingrained instinct. After all, if the first words out of her mouth weren’t sorry, followed by an explanation, people got hurt, didn’t they? And back in the army, there had been actual lives at stake, as well as millions of dollars worth of equipment if she messed something up.

It was enough to make anybody’s head spin.

But at the moment, all Adora wished was that she would really just shut up. She could feel her social standing slipping by the minute, any semblance of maturity or control she might have walked in with—if she had any—draining away to the dregs.

Couldn’t she just be fine, for once?

“Please, just sit down.” The professor was rubbing her forehead like she had a headache—probably one that Adora had given her.

_Great, Adora. Giving the prof headaches on the first day. You’re gonna do great at this._

But she wasn’t supposed to negative self talk or something, her therapist had said (even if it was true). So she shook her head slightly, trying to knock the thoughts back to the cobwebs of her mind (where they never remained for long), and turned to her bag, rummaging for a pencil and paper.

She always preferred pencil to pen, ever since she’d first learned to write. Pencils had erasers, which meant that whatever she wrote was fixable. Adora liked that, the chance that a pencil gave. She could do things over. Mistakes didn’t matter—they could always be rectified.

When she was at boarding school, she’d been teased for that. Mainly by—

“Now, I just want to go over the syllabus before we dive in.” The professor—whose name Adora still hadn’t gotten—pressed a button on her laptop, pulling up the aforementioned syllabus. “First, we’ll cover attendance policies—”

Adora bent her head over her paper and began to take notes, doing her best to zero in on the professor. It was hard, with the tick of the analog clock and the whispers of some of her classmates, somewhere near the back of the room. She’d always been bad at focusing, even when she worked really hard at it—and sometimes, working hard at it only made it worse. It was her Achilles heel in academics, along with the anxiety that kept her up at night over tests and quizzes. It was why she’d never done well at West Point, for the short time she’d attended, and why she’d always wondered why she’d been chosen to attend in the first place.

Maybe because she’d worked her ass off at everything else, just to make up for whatever shortcomings plagued her in the classroom. 

“Are you going to put that down?” The professor broke off in her explanation of attendance policies, and when Adora glanced up, she caught the turned back of a girl with long, dark curly hair and a really cool leather jacket, her hands clutching a clipboard.

She was turning in the attendance sheet. She also looked familiar in a way Adora couldn’t place—in the way she stood maybe, sort of slouched like she was doing it on purpose, even though her body language, for some reason, screamed discomfort.

Odd. But not her concern. Adora’s eyes drifted back to the notes she had taken, and she began to read them over, just to make sure she hadn’t missed anything.

“Thank you—” The professor paused, as if searching for a name. “Catra. Lovely name, by the way.”

Adora froze. For a moment, even though she was looking right at her notes, she couldn’t read a damn thing.

It couldn’t be—there was no way—

It couldn’t be the very person she hadn’t seen in six years, the girl who’d walked out of her life without even bothering to look back.

The girl Adora had never stopped missing, no matter how much she hated herself for it.

The girl froze as well, then jerked to life and took a step to the back of the classroom, without even a sideways glance, but that didn’t matter. Adora was already spinning around, papers flying, pencil falling, because she had to know.

And to her own surprise, the girl, who had seemed in such a hurry, glanced back.

Their eyes met, and it was like lightning struck Adora to the seat she was sitting on—which was good, or else she might have fallen out of it.

It was her. Six years older, maybe, her hair longer and her clothes no longer that of the stiff uniforms they’d been forced to wear in boarding school, but—it was her. Every bit as gorgeous as Adora remembered her to be at eighteen, only her mismatched eyes were harder and her upper lip was turned down in a snarl, as if looking at Adora was the very last thing she wanted to be doing.

That tracked, actually. And it occurred to Adora that maybe she shouldn’t be staring, maybe she shouldn’t be making the scene that she was definitely making right now, but she…couldn’t help it. She was too gobsmacked to do anything else.

Except, maybe, turn into a complete and utter fool.

“Catra?” The word was out before she could help it, and she realized right then that the situation—which had never been private in the first place—was now slipping into full on public embarrassment. Because this was the kind of thing that was not supposed to play put in front of a class full of tired students who just wanted to learn.

But Catra studied her for a long moment, then just gave the slightest, near-missable nod.

“Hey, Adora.” Her voice was the same, and damn, Adora hadn’t realized until just then how much she’d missed it. “Long time, no see.”

And then, before Adora could think up a suitable response, Catra turned, grabbed her things, and rushed out the door.

It swung slowly behind her. The rest of the classroom, including Adora, stared.

Adora’s heart was busy settling somewhere at the bottom of her stomach, sinking like a rock through water.

Then the professor turned to her, hands on her hips.

“Excuse me—” her eyes flew to the attendance list— “Adora, what was that?”

For a moment, Adora simply didn’t answer, too stunned to think of a reply. She was vaguely aware of the entire classroom staring at her, questions burning into her spine, and she didn’t have the answer to them.

Cringing, she shrunk back into her seat, ears turning red. “I, uh—an old friend. I don’t know. Sorry.”

There it was, the worst explanation she could possibly give. But what else could she say? _Yeah, that was just my best friend that I left behind to attend a school I flunked out of anyway, and she hates me, so she’s probably never coming back. So you don’t even have to worry. No big deal._

Her tongue sat tied in her mouth. Her foot began to tap, nervously, as she waited for a response.

Then, after a moment, the professor sighed and brought a hand up to pinch her nose.

“Okay, my crowd is usually older than the typical college freshman, so I don’t often have to give this speech. But we are not in high school, people. Please do not bring your drama into the classroom. Keep it to the written word.”

Adora shrunk down so low in her seat she was practically melded to it. Behind her, somebody snickered, and if she could have sunk all the way into the floor, she would have.

This entire day felt like a baseball, straight out of left field and right to the face. If she’d still been at the hospital, she could have told this to her state-mandated therapist—but she was out of the hospital now, and she barely had enough money for her medication, never mind talk therapy. 

She couldn’t talk to Bow or Glimmer about this. They didn’t know about Catra, and Adora wasn’t about to start sharing. There was too much guilt there, too much sordid history, too much—everything.

The only one she could have talked about it to was…Catra herself.

Who very clearly never wanted to talk to her again.

Adora stared at her notes, which she had stopped taking somewhere around the attendance policy and never started again, and resisted the urge to sink her head to her desk and cover her face with her hands. 

She wasn’t going to survive this class. Not today, and not if Catra decided to stick around, though Adora wouldn’t blame her if she never came back. She’d never given Adora a chance before—why should she give it to her now?

Maybe it’d be better if she never saw her again.

“Now let’s move on to the subject of our creative writing assignments—”

Adora gave in, and sunk her head to her desk, ignoring the look the guy beside her gave her. Instead, she stared dismally at the board, and wondered if there was a tenth level of hell.

If there was, she was pretty sure she’d reached it.

—————

“How was it?!”

The moment Adora walked through the door, she was bombarded—not just by Bow, but Glimmer too.

“I—how are you guys both home?” she stuttered out, bookbag falling to the floor with a thunk. She winced at the sound of her rented textbooks against the floor, only to rear back as both Bow and Glimmer slammed into her.

“Because we missed you!” Bow said, and even though Adora’s face was now mashed into his shoulder, she managed to scoff.

“So the navy let you off work early because you missed me?” she said. He just laughed.

“No, actually I gave the same briefing like five times today and my commander took pity on me.” He stepped back, and that was when Adora noticed that he was still wearing his khakis, the shirt now slightly rumpled from their hug. Glimmer had already changed into an oversized shirt and shorts, her uniform tossed over the back of the couch. Her hair was wet from an obviously recent shower.

“And we had a field exercise today.” She wrinkled her nose. “A short one, thank god. Let me tell you, I’m sooo glad we don’t live on base. I need to breath some air that doesn’t smell like bug spray and dirt.”

“Hey, the junior officer’s quarters aren’t so bad,” Bow said. He was removing his ribbons one by one, a practice Adora had teased him about often. Most people kept their ribbons and nametags intact on their uniforms, but Bow insisted they gathered dust that way.

Ever the meticulous officer, Bow made an excellent surface warfare officer despite the best wishes of his dads, who hated the military on all principals, something Adora had never been able to understand.

Well. Used to never be able to understand. Today, she thought maybe she understood things a little better.

Bow had applied to West Point against his father’s wishes and then, of all things, cross commissioned into the navy. He’d been teased mercilessly for this by both Adora and Glimmer, who, as army soldiers, hated the navy on principal. 

That was the way of things in the military. Competition and rivalry and the kind of morale games that mirrored school spirit. Adora had grown up in it from the age of thirteen, and she’d be lying to say she didn’t miss it. 

It was better this way, people told her. Sometimes, she accepted this, and sometimes, she wondered just how useless she was to get kicked out, not only from college, but from also the place that had ever been a home to her, all because she couldn’t hack it.

She’d never thought of herself as a failure growing up. When she was younger, she was supposed to be the best, the one at the top of the pack, the one that her caretaker, Ms. Weaver, put all the responsibility on. She was going to do great things when she got older. She was never going to fail, because that wasn’t who she was.

And then she’d gotten to adulthood and done nothing but fail, over and over again. Sometimes, she felt like she couldn’t stop. 

Sometimes, she felt like that was all she was good for, anyway.

“Bow, the junior officer quarters are barely a step above the enlisted bar—a, no offense,” Glimmer said with a glance at Adora, who only forced a smile and a shrug.

“I mean, you’re not wrong,” she said. “The enlisted barracks suck. Not as if the officers deserve such fancy accommodations, anyway.”

“Hey!” Glimmer opened her mouth to reply, only to be silenced by Bow’s elbow in her ribcage. “Ow, Bow! That’s it! Dinner’s on you!”

“But I made it last night!” Bow whined, his hands held up defensively in front of his chest.

“Then order in! Oh, but can I choose—”

Adora smiled as she moved off, picking up her bag and moving it the living room, or rather, the living room-slash-kitchen of their tiny apartment. In truth, their new home—or, newish—was probably smaller than the accommodations the military would have granted their officer friends, but Adora knew why they had chosen to live off base. They’d done it for her, because once she’d been discharged, she hadn’t been able to afford an apartment on her own. So her friends had packed their bags, given up their military housing and, despite her severe protests, found a place in which the three of them could live.

It was the nicest thing anybody had ever done for her. Well, besides everything else they had ever done for her.

“So Adora, what do you think? Pizza or Thai food?” Adora jumped as Glimmer climbed over the back of the couch and settled upon a cushion with a thwump! “Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you or, you know, trigger—”

“You didn’t do anything.” Adora cut her off with a weary smile, the kind that came from six months worth of this kind of talk. She knew her friends were well-meaning, and couldn’t fault them for their behavior. After all, when she’d been diagnosed, it was Bow and Glimmer who’d dropped half their pay at Barnes & Noble to read up on every mental illness under the sun, and how to deal with them all. 

It was just…a lot. Especially after six months. 

“I’m just tired,” she continued, conscious of Glimmer’s anxious gaze upon her, “and…”

Then she hesitated. Because did she really want to spill what had happened this morning? The experience had rattled her, not only in the anxious sense, but with a whirlwind of emotions she couldn’t name. Guilt was at the forefront (guilt was usually at the forefront), but there was also plenty of anxiety, fear, dread, and most of all—

Relief. Relief that her childhood best friend wasn’t just a checkpoint in her past, somebody she had irrevocably left behind, for better or worse. Catra was still around, still alive, and—well, she had to be doing okay, if she was going to college. Probably better than Adora, though that wasn’t saying much.

What would Catra say, Adora wondered, if she’d known just how right she’d been?

Probably she’d sneer and tell her, right to her face. _Yeah, idiot. I was right. And you turned out to be just as stupid as you looked. Guess I was right about that part too, huh?_

In some ways, memory-Catra ached of bitter, summer-sweetness. In others, she just hurt. Sometimes, Adora couldn’t tell if she had ever actually been that mean, or if she was just being particularly harsh on herself. 

Glimmer was still watching her, waiting for an answer.

“Worn out,” she lied—though it wasn’t exactly a lie. “I had creative writing and precalc and it’s kind of a headspin, you know?”

“Oh, definitely.” Bow dropped on the couch beside Glimmer and nodded wisely. “But it was your first day, Adora! And you’re done with it! Now you only have second days!”

Adora smiled, though she couldn’t quite make it reach all the way. “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”

_Second days. Second creative writing class. If Catra’s there—_

“So, Thai food?” Glimmer lunged for her phone on the battered coffee table, as Bow groaned and sank into the couch.

“You are not making me pay just because I elbowed you! I apologized! Besides, you’ve done way worse to me!”

“Silence, Navy scum—”

“Adora, she’s being mean!”

Adora just laughed and shook her head, forcing any thought of the next week from her mind. She couldn’t contemplate it—to do so would only make her anxious. Instead, after her friends had gone to bed, Adora would use some of her homework time to devise a strategy for next week’s class.

She could do this. Maybe she wasn’t as good at fixing things as she was supposed to be—maybe she’d never been as good as she thought. But she couldn’t just sit there and watch her childhood friend slip through her fingers.

Not when she’d fumbled her the last time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be explained later, but for those of you wondering how Adora ended up in the military when she flunked out of west point: if you attend a military academy and flunk out after two years, you have to either pay back your education, or pay back in years of service. Adora, having no money, chose years of service (also because she's her). It's a fun system (it is not).
> 
> I also decided to put the best friend gang in the military because I wanted to show multiple viewpoints, and it seemed to me a very natural way for Adora to meet her friends in a way that wasn't connected to catra and so on.


End file.
